Gothic Ivories Project | Casket, with arches (coffret; frise d'arcatures; colonnettes) (Front)

Lid
Saint Peter holding a key; saint Catherine of Alexandria with wheel and martyr's palm; saint John the Evangelist with a book and martyr's palm; saint Paul holding a sword (half hidden under his cloak).
Body, front
Adoration of the Magi; Nativity (the two scenes are conflated).
End, right
Presentation in the temple; Christ standing on the altar between the Virgin and Simeon.
Body, back
Coronation of the Virgin; musician angel playing a string instrument; Annunciation to the Shepherds; sheep.
End, left
Annunciation; vase of lilies.

Kube 1925: France, 14th century.
Kryzhanovskaya 2014: French (?), 3rd quarter of the 19th century.

Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy: gold (hair, along the hems), red and green (haloes, pattern on the altar cloth, architectural details), red (inside the veils), blue (shoes).

Reverse
Carved on all sides.

Object Condition
Horizontal crack in the front panel and to the right of the back panel. Left edge of the back panel chipped.
Metal discolouration.

Provenance
Collection of Michel Boy, Paris: acquired from him in 1881, for the Stieglitz museum of Applied Arts, Saint Petersburg; transferred to the Hermitage in 1924.

Bibliography
A. N. Kube, Reznaia kost'. Katalog [Ivory Carvings Catalogue Hermitage], (Leningrad [Saint-Petersburg], 1925), no. 90.
Rzemioslo artystyczne zachodniej Europy od XI do XVI wieku ze zborow panstwowego Ermitazu w Sankt-Petersburgu, exhibition catalogue, Malbork, The Malbork Castle Museum, 1994, no. 38, fig. 23.
"Fraiburskii" krest i ego mir. Zapadnoevropeiskoe prikladnoe iskusstvo Srednikh vekov v sobranii Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha, exhibition catalogue, Saint Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum, 2004, no. 41.
M. Kryzhanovskaya, Western European Medieval Ivories. Catalogue of the Collection (Зaпaднoeврoпeйскaя рeзнaя кoстъ Срeдних вeкoв. Кataлoг кoллeкции), (St Peterburg, 2014), no. 190.

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